Quantum cryptography and quantification of quantum correlations

Abstract

Study of the security of quantum key distribution protocols has provided us a deeper understanding about the trade-off between the amount of information extracted from a quantum system and the disturbance left in the system as a result of the extraction process. Here we discuss how such a new development helps us to understand the quantum correlations in a quantitative way. A detailed analysis of the information-disturbance trade-off for the zero-disturbance cases leads to a simple structure theorem, and the theorem can be used to derive an exact formula for the compressibility of quantum signals, which is a measure of quantum correlations in terms of the cost to preserve them. The analysis including the nonzero disturbance cases has a very close connection to the theory of entanglement. While the distillable key is regarded as a measure of entanglement, it does not coincide with either of the two operational measures of entanglement, the distillable entanglement and the entanglement cost. We discuss the physical meaning of the difference between these three measures of entanglement by providing each of them with an alternative operational definition.